“Now you heard the judge say that if you ever came before him again, it would go hard with you. I just want to tell you, Herve, that in such a case you can’t count on me; you’ll have to take the consequences. I don’t mean that I’d let you go to jail; I know you wouldn’t commit a crime—be dishonest. But if it should ever seem advisable to send you away to some sort of military or training school, perhaps, where you will be under rigid discipline I would not discourage such a course. There are places where they send boys who are hard to manage. I think school opens a week from Monday, doesn’t it?”
“Yop, but Hairpin Wilkens isn’t going to teach mathematics this year, that’s one good thing.”
“And you’ve left the Scouts?”
“I threw them down flat,” said Hervey. “But, one thing, I’m going to show Chesty McCullen a good time; look what he was up against—oh bimbo!”
“I think that’s a good idea, Herve,” said Mr. Walton. “Why don’t you take him to the movies? Isn’t there a cowboy play at the Lyric?”
“Nix on looking at that stuff; it only makes me want to get out on a mustang. That’s what I want to do most of all—ride a horse, a good wild one. Montana, that’s where I’d like to go. Don’t you think the train robbers are all dead—they’re not.”
“No, I don’t suppose so.”
“I want to go on a ranch, that’s what I want to do.”
“Yes, but even on a ranch you’d have to obey orders. Ranches are run by rules. The whole world is run by rules, Herve.”
“Some punk rules, I’ll say.”